Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Halle-Freaking-lujah!!!

Did you all hear my my ecstatic wooping after Heffner's vet visit today??? We have lots of good news and an exercise plan for Heffner.:o)

First of all, everything is healing fine and she said that was great that I was so frustrated with Heffner's pent up-ness that I've been thinking murderous thoughts about my dog. 'Cause that means that he's getting the rest that he needs and requires to completely heal. Now that we've weathered that storm, I'm actually quite pleased that I stuck to the exercise plan that she doled out initially. And yes, his initial exercise restriction was purposefully extreme. She's seen quite a number of iliopsoas strains that weren't given the proper rest that just kept recurring. Not knowing how well each owner is going to follow strict exercise restriction guidelines when they're dog starts to lose their mind from the lack of release; the "prescription" was necessarily harsh to ensure that the dog got at least some of the necessary rest. So I'll juts pat myself on the back for sucking it up and following the vets orders, because now my dog is happily on the mend and the restrictions have been limited somewhat.

I'm also thrilled to say that she doesn't believe that this muscle strain was a result of Heffner's straight rear angulation. She doesn't feel that it will be a recurring issue either. And best of all, we have two thumbs up to go back to agility once he's back in shape!

Up until now Heffner has only gotten one 10 min. walk a day, not including small potty breaks in the back yard. NOW he is allowed TWO 15 min. walks a day for the next two weeks. The two weeks after that we can bump it up to two 20-25 min. walks a day. At that point we'll go in for another check up just to ensure that everything is still going well. After that I have the thumbs up to slowly return him to normal activity!!!! Yay!!!! I am sooooooooooooooooooo relieved!!

Switching gears completely, I had a little ah-ha moment this morning with Bess while we were doing some obedience work. The previous site that we had been working at didn't have any sort of alley way or area in which I could walk a continuous circle and still have Bess in between myself and a wall to keep her heeling straight instead of swinging her butt out. We would spend half of our time with a wall assisting us and the other half out in the open as we circled back. Which isn't awful because I eventually need to get her heeling correctly with nothing there, but right now I want her to build the muscle memory so that it's just automatic to assume the correct position. Well this morning we walked over to one of the other grade schools near our house because I had cased the area with Heffner on one of his short walks. It just so happens that they have a wonderfully long chain link fence around their sports fields that run directly next to a sidewalk. I used that with Bess this morning with the trepidation that it was going to be an awfully long stretch of open area when we looped back. HOWEVER, it turns out that Bess will not step off the edge of the sidewalk while heeling and paying attention to me! So we essentially have a continuous loop that we're able to do and she stays in great heel position the whole time!!

She's also doing awesome at self correcting when I clear my throat or give her an AH correction when she starts forging ahead. On a loose leash she will automatically drop back next to my hip and look up at me. Big rewards for that!! I'm really pleased with how she's doing.

Now on to pedometer talk!:) For those wondering about what pedometers to use, any ole pedometer that you can pick up at a sporting goods store or some place like Fred Meyer should theoretically work fine. The one that I'm using is one that I picked up at Fred Meyer a few years back.

To be honest, I bought it because it was pretty and part of the proceeds from the purchase went towards breast cancer research. I think it was $6, and I'm pretty sure that was where the portion that went towards breast cancer research came into play.

And in true dork fashion, I have been dutifully wearing both my regular pedometer shown above in addition to my DS activity monitor.:) I know, I know. Try to contain your awe at that sheer awesomeness of my fashion sense.:) Thankfully I wear scrubs pretty much all day at work and the little contraptions are pretty much consistently covered unless I'm obsessively checking the pedometer for how many steps I've done and the activity monitor to see if the little light has started to blink green (it goes from blinking red to green when you've hit your daily step goal). Before revealing how many steps I took yesterday, I will preface it by saying that I'm on my feet a fair amount. It also helps that I'm walking the dogs in the morning and have at least 3,000 steps under my belt before 7am. So yesterday I took a whopping 14,894 steps. Um, yeah, like I said, I'm on my feet a fair amount and do a bit of walking while at work.

I was also excited to do my first upload onto the DS from the little activity monitor! That thing is so neat and I totally love the program! It is just so cool to be able to see a graph of your activity level broken down throughout the day in hourly chunks! Yes, I'm a nerd and I can totally admit it, but I'm excited to upload my monitor tonight and see TWO DAYS worth of data!:)

I also decided to change things up a little bit with the Pedometer Challenge. I think it's a lot easier for everyone who wants to participate to just comment on one of my threads that mentions the Pedometer Challenge. If you're going to put it in your blog, I'll include links to the blog posts, but otherwise we'll just have a free-for-all with people commenting on how they're doing each day or whatever. Then we can all see how each other is doing in sort of one central place. Does that make sense? I'll probably revise this as we go along, but it sort of seemed like a "better" way to do it right now.

Alright people! Those of you participating, what was your first days step count? I'm excited to hear how people are doing!!

I wore it to work on Tuesday and realized that when it falls off and dangles by the clip it doesn't continue to record movement. UGH! So, while with the dogs at work, running up and down stairs, etc. etc, I recorded a whopping...wait for it....1,973 steps. So disappointing. I didn't even feel it dangling. It probably fell off as soon as I walked into work with the first dog that jumped on me. And today I didn't wear it. It was lunch time before I realized I forgot it. Tomorrow is a new day, I'll try again.

Ok, let me just say I am an old woman that leads a sedentary life even though I work full time :) LOL. I was stunned when you said you hit 3,000 before you even left for work!I started wearing it Saturday afternoon, and so far my best day was Monday at 3942. I was pretty pleased with myself, but now :(Guess I had better get my behind in gear, huh?

About Me

My life with big dogs is focused on Miley, my fawn girl born in March of 2014, and Dominic, my black boy born in November of 2015. Our down time is spent running and hiking around beautiful Oregon. I'm also a fan of training my dogs to do random tricks and behaviors as well as working with them on a variety of overall strengthening exercises that involve a wide variety of stability balls and other pieces of equipment. Many of these activities I have videoed and you can see throughout the blog. I have previously competed in agility, rally, obedience, and skijoring with Heffner and Bess. Miley is just getting started in her conformation career and has started training for various performance sports. We're looking forward to a fun and active future! I hope you enjoy the blog and all of our adventures!